Lost my heart in vrindavan
- Publishing Date: 21-Apr-2018
- Category: Religious
- Starting Date: 27-Aug-2016
- No of Days: 2 Days
- Expense: 2500
- Location: Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, India
To read the same blog in Hindi, go to setting gear showing on the right hand side and change the language selection to Hindi.
August 2016, one fine day I was thinking over some random things and suddenly a plan come to my mind, and the plan was "Bike trip to Mathura", so on a Friday evening we decided to let's execute this plan, and we will start early in the morning and after reaching Mathura, we will do Govardhan Parikrma and after that we explore Vrindavan on bike and on the next day we will come back. In the month of August the days are hot, but we will manage it.
Before starting this journey, I would like to tell you that I keep going 4 or 5 times in the year to Govardhan, it is a center of my faith for me.
We fixed our plan to start early in the morning and we slept, but we didn't wake up early in the morning, at around 10:00 AM we were heading towards yamuna expressway with our bike and Neha was with me in this trip, yamuna expressway is about 30 to 35 kilometers from my house, and it took around 45 minutes to reach the entry point of yamuna expressway. Yamuna expressway is among the best highways in India, it is a 6 lane road and can be extended upto 8 lane, which start from Greater Noida and via Mathura it ends at Agra and covers a distance of 165 kilometers. And its second part i.e. from Agra to Lucknow, if we combined these two, then it is the longest expressway of India. As per my knowledge related to travel, this is the only highway in India where bike is also comes under toll tax, and the cost is also too much.
We were moving very fast on this road as there were less vehicle and the road was wide enough, and we were getting an average speed around 60 KM/hour, we took some stops to have some snacks and tea, there are lot of public convenience complex and eateries available on this road. For public convenience there is an exit point available before 10 kilometers of Mathura, i.e. Exit 7A. By following this route one can go direct Vrinadavn. We followed the same route, at that time the road was not in very good condition so we slow down our speed and after half an hour we were in Vrindavan.
I already booked a room in a lodge in Vrindavan, but that room was not in good condition so I replace it with an AC room, and it was also like OK condition. We did some rest in the same room and after that we were ready to go to Govardhan and took out our bike and have lunch on the way to Govardhan. The distance between Govardhan and Vrindavan is around 20 kilometers, and it took half an hour to cover this distance. Before this, I did all the Govardhan Parikrma by bare feet, but this time I want to do this by bike, so we didn't park the bike and started the parikrma.
Information related to Govardhan:
Govardhan or Goverdhan is a key pilgrimage centre in India and a municipal town; a nagar panchayat ; seat of a MLA Member of Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh; a Tehsil, in Mathura district in the India in state of Uttar Pradesh. About 23 kilometres from Mathura, the town is on the road link between Mathura and Deeg.
How to reach:
Govardhan does not have a train station, and the nearest station is Mathura, at a distance of 22 kms from Govardhan, situated on Alwar-Mathura road at a distance of 120 kilometers from Alwar. Share taxi and buses are available to reach Govardhan from Mathura raliway station throughout the day.
A beautiful temple in the Govardhan parikrma marg
Parikrma end's here
As Govardhan was like a regular place for me, so we don't to explore it, we just want to complete the Parikrma and by bike it took half an hour o complete it. By completing the Parikrama, we worshiped the temple in front of Manasi Ganga and walked out and returned to Vrindavan again.
Information related to Vrindavan:
Vrindavan is a town in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is the site where according to Hinduism, Lord Krishna spent his childhood days and is one of the main places in the Braj Bhoomi region. The town is about 15 km away from Mathura, Krishna's birthplace on the Agra-Delhi highway (NH 2). The town hosts many temples dedicated to the worship of Radha and Krishna and is considered sacred by Vaishnavism.
Vaishno Devi temple, Vrindavan
Vrindavan itself is a temple in which there are many temples, if I will call this place a city of temples then there will be no wrong. When you come to Vrindavan from Govardhan, you start seeing Vrindavan's magnificent temples as you enter Vrindavan. The first temple in this series is Vaishno Devi Dham, this temple is situated on main road and has a large parking area in which you can park your vehicle. The main idol in this temple is visible to you from a distance, and the reason is the height of this idol, this is the tallest Vaishno Devi idol in the world whose height is 141 feet, and because of this, it has been ranked in Limca Book of World Records. To get more information about this temple click here.
Radha Krishna at Vrindavan Chandrodaya Temple
Me and Neha in the garden of Chandrodaya Temple
Vrindavan Chandrodaya Temple is the next temple by going on a little further on this road, here the construction of the world's tallest temple is under construction and its maintenance is in the hands of the ISKCON Society. The height of this temple will be around some 210 meters, which is more than the Qutub Minar of Delhi, the Taj Mahal of Agra and the Pyramid of Egypt. It will take a long time in the construction of main temple, so the ISKCON Society has made a small temple in the same neighborhood. Inside this temple you will see the glimpse of other temples of ISKON, here you can remember God with a calm mind, the idols of Radha Krishna in the temple are very beautiful.
Prem Mandir
On this road, going forward a little ahead, Prem Mandir is situated. In my opinion, the best time to see the beauty of Prem Mandir is in evening, when all the lights of the temple are switched ON, the scene of that time is incredible. Lights that has been installed in this temple has been installed in such a way that they change its color in a little while, It seems as if the whole temple takes a new look in every 2 minutes.
We reached here around 07:00 pm, there was a lot of crowd in the temple, and it took another 10 minutes to park the bike and got inside the temple and at that time all the lights of the temple were switched ON and our feet just stuck there and our eyes were not blinking, the scene was superb. There are lots of tableau available in the temple premises, among all of them I liked the one in which lord Krishna holds the Govardhan Mountain on the finger. On seeing all these tableau, we reached the entrance to the temple; due to the crowd, people associated with the temple management were sending people inside in the groups.
In such a group, we also went inside the temple, the workmanship inside the temple is magnificent, the main idol of this temple is just like a master piece and I can't define its beauty in words, at that moment I felt like time stand still and I will watch this again and again, now I can understand why this temple is named Prem Mandir.
After some time we walked from the second gate to the exit, there were some small sinks in the temple walls, in which each one had some illustrations of mythological stories, and they were changing colors in a little while, these views were also excellent, I immediately took out the camera and captured this moment.
Then suddenly many people were seen going towards the park behind the temple, then even before we reached the place, the surrounding environment started to flare up with different types of laser lights, we tried to understand what is going on?
Suddenly, at a height of about 15-20 feet from the ground, a picture of Krishna was seen between a colorful laser lights, the entire scene was like, god was manifesting from the sky. Actually there were fountains below, and the image was being made from the laser projector light scattering on the water droplets.
Iskcon Vrindavan - Krishna Balram
Iskcon Vrindavan - Radha Krishna
From here, we move towards the ISKCON (Krishna Balram) temple of Vrindavan, parking is available in the front after crossing the road. We parked the bike and walked inside the temple, you can go to any ISKCON temple at the time of the evening aarti, you will see a very good environment here, well we were standing on the holy land of Vrindavan, the number of foreign devotees are more than Indian devotees in ISKCON Vrindavan. They left their country, their luxuries life, and doing the service of god and this is the best thing one can do in their life. We were now inside the temple; a lot of people were carrying drums, and other instruments and doing the Kirtan, I had been tired so far, but in this environment all of my tiredness goes away and on next moment I started dancing on the tune of Kirtan. We stayed with devotees for nearly half an hour in that devotional atmosphere. We stayed with devotees for nearly half an hour in that devotional atmosphere.
Devotees at Iskcon Vrindavan
Now I was hungry, and I was thinking for some good food joint, suddenly I remember that there is a Govinda restaurant in ISKCON here, these restaurants are run by the Iskcon Society on No Profit No Loss, then we walked to the restaurant. Our order was Dossa, sambhar vada and idli, the food was really delicious, since now whenever I want to eat some good food, I will go to ISKCON near my home in Noida, this place is a paradise for vegetarians. After having dinner, we were moving towards our lodge. There is no plan to travel somewhere on tomorrow, will wake up comfortably and go back to Noida. We started at 07:00 in the morning from Vrindavan from our bike and at around 11:00 we reached home.
"Vrindavan aaye the ye soch kar ke unka dil jeet lenge, magar jab laute to khud ke dil ka pata nahin tha"
The journey ends here, I hope you liked this trip. If you have any questions or suggestions in your mind, you can comment in the comment box below.
Happy traveling
Fir milege kahi kisi roj ghumte firte
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